Fic: The Stream of Warm Impermanence, Part 2
Title: The Stream of Warm Impermanence
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Pre-teen!Neal, Peter, El, Moz
Spoilers: None
Content Notice: De-aging; violence against a child, but nothing you wouldn’t see on TV
Word Count: 15,200
Summary: Neal Burke is 11 and the most popular boy in school. His dad Peter is a badass FBI agent, his mom Elizabeth makes the best chocolate chip cookies, and his Uncle Mozzie shows him how to pick locks when his parents aren’t looking. His life is great. Except that lately, Neal has been having these strange dreams - dreams of another life and another Neal. What if they’re true?
Part 1 | Part 2
----
Peter got out of the Taurus, grabbed his briefcase and locked the car. He had come home early because the family had rescheduled the meeting with the guidance counselor and principal about Neal's skipping grades for that evening. They were due at the school in an hour, and still they didn’t have a decision for them. He spotted Elizabeth heading towards him from her own parking space up the block, and they converged on their front stoop at about the same time.
“Hi, hon, have a good day?” she asked, getting up on her tiptoes to kiss him hello.
“Long staff meeting,” Peter shrugged. “You?”
“I hope so - if I snag this account, we’ll have an in at the Mayor’s office.”
“Good luck then.” Peter unlocked the door for them both and let his wife precede him into the house while he grabbed the mail.
“Neal, we’re home, honey!” El called out as soon as she got inside. She hung up her coat, then headed up the stairs to drop off her things in her office while Peter stood in the kitchen sorting through the pile of mail. He was just about to open the cable bill when Elizabeth’s panicked, “Peter!” from upstairs made his blood run cold.
“What? What is it?” he said, entering their bedroom. El turned around, and Peter saw behind her the mess Neal had left when the boy had rifled through the wall safe. “Oh no,” he breathed, turned on his heel and went to the bedroom down the hall. There were papers strewn on the bed, but no sign of their son. Peter sorted through them all - the envelope had held Neal's files from the adoption and his reclassification hearing, and some of the documents were missing.
“Neal!” Peter could hear Elizabeth searching for him on the third floor, and he went out to the hallway.
“Is he up there?” he asked, knowing already what the answer was. El’s face was as white as a sheet as she stumbled down the stairs, and he could see her trembling. He handed her the papers from Neal's bed, and she rifled through them quickly, saw for herself what was missing.
He gathered her into his arms as she moaned, “Oh my God, Peter, he knows, he knows!”
Peter had to agree with her conclusion - there was no question in his mind that Neal's dream about Avery could not have been his first, and had been enough to make him investigate further. It also explained Neal's being uncharacteristically quiet and withdrawn over the last few days. Somehow, he’d figured out that he was the victim of a freak accident eight years ago that left him a child again at the age of 30.
But the papers in the safe wouldn't have told Neal the whole story, so Peter went into his son’s room and fired up his PC. On it, he sorted through pages of browser logs that showed he’d already researched the name “Neal Caffrey,” and Peter clicked through on a few. Conman. Art forger. Convicted felon. Thief. To Neal, his old identity was the sum of these news items, none of which told the true story. The story of the Neal Caffrey Peter knew: loyal friend, trusted partner, courageous, intelligent, maddening, lovable. And the Neal he’d become in recent years: beloved son, cherished and adored.
“Oh my God, what must he be thinking?” El said, sitting on her son’s bed with a stricken expression on her face.
“Never mind that, where the hell is he?” Peter said. He stood and pulled his cell phone from his pocket, cycled through the numbers on it and called the school. El got her own phone out and called Neal's friend Teddy’s house, then some of his other friends. Within ten minutes one thing was clear - Neal had cut classes that day, and none of his friends seemed to have seen him.
----
When Peter arrived at the school, the principal Mrs. Wong was waiting for him in her office with Mr. Bryant the guidance counselor. Elizabeth had remained at home in case Neal showed up, or if any of his friends had any information. Within minutes, some of Neal's teachers that were still in the building after classes had also gathered , and they were discussing when they had last seen the boy.
“I thought I saw him after third period this morning,” Bryant was saying. “He was talking with Mr. Koehler in his classroom.”
“Mr. Koehler? Who’s that?” Peter asked.
“Substitute math teacher,” Mrs. Wong informed him. “Mr. Fricke had an accident and had to take a few weeks to recuperate.”
“Neal didn’t mention a new teacher.”
“Come to think of it, I’ve seen Neal and Mr. Koehler together a few times after school,” added Bryant. “I think he was teaching Neal to play chess.”
“Neal is an expert player, he wouldn’t need instruction,” Peter said, pacing the floor in front of Mrs. Wong’s desk.
“I saw them at the tables in the park next to the school, playing. I just assumed he was teaching Neal.”
“But they were friendly, would you say that?” Peter said, pressing him.
Bryant gave it some thought. “I would say so, yes. They certainly seemed to get along well.”
“Where is this Mr. Koehler? Is he in the school?”
“He called out for the afternoon, come to think of it,” said Mrs. Wong.
Peter looked at her sharply and she flinched. “The strange man who’s been spending time with my son has disappeared at the same time,” he said slowly. “Who is this Koehler?”
“Now just a minute, our substitutes are subjected to detailed background checks.” Mrs. Wong got out the file for the substitute, but found nothing inside but his application. “I don’t understand,” she said. “There should be a background check in here, a copy of his photo ID, but there’s nothing here. Nothing.”
The knot in Peter’s stomach began to twist itself painfully and he closed his eyes, trying to think. “Does the school have surveillance set up that encompasses any part of that park?” he asked.
Mrs. Wong gave it some thought, then called down to the security office, requesting the tapes be sent up.
“No, wait a minute,” Peter said before she could hang up. “Have them also pull the tapes for every exit from the building today, every exterior shot you can pull. If they left together, it’ll be in there.”
“Certainly, Mr. Burke. We can set you up in our media room.”
“No, I’ll take them with me to the FBI - we’ll have better resources there. Please ask them to hurry.”
----
Peter stood behind the chair of Agent DeVries from the Cyber Division as the man scanned the footage from the school’s surveillance cameras for signs of Neal. The door of the video suite opened and closed and Diana entered, bearing coffee and sandwiches. “Any luck?”
DeVries accepted the coffee gratefully, but shook his head. “It must be the best covered school in the district, but no sign of the boy yet.”
Diana took a seat at an adjacent station. “Let me help, then - it’ll make it go faster.” Peter just stood at the back of the room staring at nothing, a muscle working in his jaw the only sign of life in him. Di picked up a disk labeled “Playground 3” and slid it into the machine in front of her. Fifteen minutes later, she sat forward and slowed the progression of the video. “Hang on a second. Is that Neal?”
Peter stepped forward and leaned over her shoulder as she magnified the image. “Yes.” On the video, Neal wandered slowly out of the school building, heading for a bank of tire swings in the middle of the playground. He sank onto one of the swings heavily, his shoulders bowed and his head down, pulled a piece of paper out of his backpack and began to stare at it. He looked so dejected, it made Peter ache to reach out and comfort him.
Neal sat swaying and twisting on the swing for several minutes before another person entered the frame, an adult male. He kept his back to the camera when he took up the swing next to Neal's and the two seemed to be talking as if they knew each other.
“The mysterious Mr. Koehler. Turn around so I can see your face, you son of a bitch,” Peter breathed.
Neal seemed agitated on the footage suddenly, and a few minutes later, Koehler stood, held a hand out to the boy. Neal slid out of the swing and took a step toward him. Koehler rested his hand on the back of Neal's neck and squeezed, and the two of them turned to leave the playground. When they did, Koehler finally faced the camera, his features presented full-on for one, fleeting second.
“Freeze that!” Peter ordered, but Diana already had. She magnified the image, sent it through a few filtesr in the graphics program she was running to clarify it. Finally, the man’s face resolved itself into something recognizable.
“Oh, my God, boss!” Diana sat up and reached for Peter, but he had already dashed from the room.
The man in the image was Matthew Keller.
----
Peter stood on the plaza in front of the Federal building, staring at his cell phone in his hand. Upstairs on the 21st floor, Diana was mustering resources for the search the FBI was about to launch for Neal and Keller. An Amber Alert had been sent out throughout the five boroughs, Connecticut and New Jersey, and all LEAs had been alerted. Diana had also sent agents to the Burke home to be with Elizabeth in the event of a ransom demand. Peter wanted more than anything to be with his wife, had in fact been ordered by his boss to go home, but there was no way he could do that.
His phone vibrated with an incoming text. The mockingbird flies at midnight, it read and he turned around.
“I don’t have time for this now, Moz,” he called out.
“Fine, fine,” Moz said as he approached Peter from behind. “Now tell me what was so urgent that you couldn’t tell me over the phone.
Peter turned and looked at his friend - in the years since Neal's adoption, the love the two men had for the boy had led to them forging a close friendship - and took a stumbling step toward him. For a moment, the iron grip he had been maintaining on his composure began to slip.
“Oh, my God, what happened?” Moz asked urgently, taking in Peter’s pale face, the tears brimming in his eyes.
“Matthew Keller’s back,” Peter moaned despairingly as he grabbed onto Mozzie’s shoulders for support. “He’s taken Neal, Moz! Keller’s got my son!”
XxXxXxXxXxX
“Pizza’s here,” Mr. Koehler said to Neal, closing the door of the loft he’d been squatting in for the last few weeks. Neal switched off the television show he wasn’t watching and walked over to join him at the kitchen table. Mr. Koehler laid the pizza box down, then crossed over to the fridge and grabbed a beer for himself and a soda for Neal.
They ate for a few minutes in silence, but finally Mr. Koehler spoke up. “So, did you say you could remember things about your life before?” He handed Neal a napkin.
“I suppose so. I thought they were dreams, but now I guess they’re really memories.”
“How much do you remember?”
Neal shrugged.
“Do you think if you saw something from your past, it would jog your memory? Like you might remember doing something if you were in the same place, I mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Why?”
Mr. Koehler leaned forward, and Neal didn’t like the mean glint he saw in his eyes, though it passed quickly. “How would you like to go on a treasure hunt?”
“Treasure hunt?”
Mr. Koehler leaned back in his chair and squinted at Neal. “Twenty-two years ago, one of the biggest heists in the history of Manhattan occurred. The take was said to be over $9 million. Now, seeing as the target was the Irish mob, the crime was never exactly reported. The mastermind of the job - one Edward ‘Kool Eddie’ Jenkins - hid the money as planned until the heat died down enough for him and his partners to divvy it up. Kool Eddie subsequently got sent up on a charge of grand larceny. He died in prison a year later, and the money was never found.”
Neal regarded Mr. Koehler with large eyes. “Wow! Do you know where it is?”
“No, but Neal Caffrey does.”
“Really?”
“Caffrey - I mean, you - were something of a protégé of Eddie’s. You were young but smart, and rumor was Eddie told you where the money was hidden before he died.”
“I - I don’t remember any of that, Mr. Koehler.”
“But maybe you will, if we jog your memory properly.” He grinned at Neal.
Neal looked at him dubiously. He didn’t like the intensity in Mr. Koehler suddenly. Why was he so interested in this lost money? “How do you know all this, Mr. Koehler? You’re a teacher.”
Koehler shrugged and smiled, but the mirth he projected did not touch his eyes. “I have many talents. Eat your pizza - we’re going out after dinner.”
----
Neal followed Mr. Koehler through a line of old warehouses on the waterfront in Brooklyn. He walked slowly, wondering if he could just slip away from the man when he wasn’t looking. He didn’t like how Mr. Koehler was suddenly only interested in finding the stolen money, and he suspected that was the only reason he’d been talking to Neal to begin with. This made him sad, because the idea of someone who’d known him before made him momentarily relieved, like somehow he could start to put the puzzle of his life together. But Mr. Koehler had already lied to him once, and he wondered what would happen if they really did find the money - how useful would Neal be to him then?
If he could even remember anything about the money, he realized. Only a few memories of his old life had surfaced, and only while he slept, and he didn’t think he’d be able to just call them up no matter how they jogged his memory.
Mr. Koehler stopped walking and waited for Neal to catch up. He indicated the warehouse in front of them, and went over to the door, pulled out a set of picks and began to set to work on the locks. He had it open in seconds, much to Neal's amazement.
“You like that?” Mr. Koehler said, and Neal nodded - he never thought he’d be able to do it that fast, ever. “Practice, practice.” Koehler opened up the door and ushered Neal inside.
They walked to the back corner of the place, where a small, glass-fronted office was set up. Koehler opened its door and walked in, beckoned Neal to join him. “You recognize this place?” Neal didn’t react. “Well, maybe you don’t because it’s been a few years. I’m sure the place has changed a bit, but it used to be where Kool Eddie worked. Rumor has it this is where the plan was hatched, refined, practiced. You see, across the way there?” Koehler gestured to another warehouse across a broad expanse of pitted blacktop. “That’s where the Irish mob used to move their money from running numbers, drugs, all kinds of stuff. The day of the heist, they were moving a larger sum than they usually did, because they were laundering a few extra million for the cartels, and the Mexicans, well, they used to like to deal only in cash. You know what money laundering is?”
Neal shook his head; he didn’t know what any of this was.
“Doesn’t matter. What does matter was that Eddie, whose day job was managing this place,” he indicated the abandoned warehouse as a whole, “heard through the grapevine what was going on, and started assembling a crew to rob the money train. That’s what they called it, because they’d transport the cash in containers they’d move over abandoned rails. You were his wheel man.”
“Wheel man?”
“Driver. I don’t know why, because you could never drive for shit, but I think he liked you, and he wanted to cut you in.”
“OK…” Neal said.
“So, any of this jogging your memories? You getting a vibe here at all?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Take your time. Walk around. Take the place in. Absorb the ambience.”
Neal began to walk around the room slowly, because he thought that was what was expected of him, but it was no use - nothing about the place was remotely familiar. At last, he stopped and looked up at his teacher. “I’m sorry, Mr. Koehler. I don’t think I remember anything about this place.”
A brief expression of annoyance flickered across Koehler’s face, but he couldn’t cover it fast enough, and Neal noticed. His smile made him look like a bird of prey. “That’s OK. Why don’t we visit the scene of the crime instead.”
A finger of fear poked Neal in the belly. He didn’t think he wanted to go to the other warehouse, not where criminals used to hide their money. He thought it would be too dangerous.
“Relax, kid,” Koehler said. “The place hasn’t been used by the mob in years. And you’re with me - what could go wrong?”
XxXxXxXxXxX
“You brought a Fed here, Moz? Tell me why I shouldn’t shoot the both of you on the spot?”
Rodney - no last name, just Rodney - was the clearinghouse for information in New York. He was like a spider at the center of a great web of informants, lackeys and cops on the take, all of whom saw the value in trading information with him. Nothing happened in New York without his knowledge; no wise con pulled a job without first consulting with him. To Rodney, information was power, and he guarded it closely.
“I suppose I wouldn’t blame you if you did, but hear what we have to say before you decide. A child’s life may hang in the balance.”
Rodney’s stern expression softened. “Whose child?”
“His,” Moz said, indicating Peter with a thumb.
“And you’ve come to me? It seems to me the Feebs would have ample resources to help you.”
“Yes, the FBI is investigating, and they’re doing everything within the law to help, but I need more than that,” Peter said, his voice desperate. “I need whatever information you can offer, and I can pay. Please.”
Moz laid a hand over Peter’s to quiet him. “I’ll pay, Peter.” Of one thing Moz was certain: if Keller was in the city, Rodney knew about it. But that information would come at a high price, and there was no way he’d allow Peter to pay it. He couldn’t allow him to be beholden to a man like Rodney.
“Now wait just a minute there, Moz,” Rodney said. “It might not be a bad thing for me to have a Fed in my debt. This intrigues me.”
Moz bent over Rodney where he sat and made a dismissive gesture. “No. No way.”
“I’ll do it,” Peter said over him.
“What?”
“I’ll do it. I’ll do anything. Please, he’s taken my son, will you help me find him?”
Rodney blinked at the pleading tone in Peter’s voice. “Who has your boy?” he asked.
“Matthew Keller.”
Rodney sat forward on the couch he’d settled his considerable bulk into. “Really?” he said, barely able to hide the contempt in his voice. Like many of the old guard in the city, Rodney had had his share of run-ins with Keller back in the day. Some had been profitable, most had merely brought messes. Besides, Rodney had grandkids he loved very much. “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you,” Peter said, his relief making him barely able to stand.
“And I’ll even forego my usual fee because I hate Keller as much as the next man. But one day I may need a favor from you, Mr. Fed. Are you willing to do that?”
“Anything,” Peter answered immediately. “If it will bring my son back to me safely, I’ll do anything.”
“I’ll call you within the hour.”
XxXxXxXxXxX
It was getting late - almost midnight - and Neal was exhausted and missing his home and his bed and his family. Mr. Koehler had dragged him to three other locations to see if he could remember anything, and of course he could not, so they had returned to the loft apartment somewhere downtown. Neal wished he had thought to look at the street signs - he didn’t know the city all that well, but if he could somehow get away, he wanted to be able to call his dad to come and get him. Even if he was still mad at his parents for lying to him, he wanted to be back with them more than ever, because he was now scared of Mr. Koehler.
Mr. Koehler was angry with Neal, he could tell. The amiable smiles had faded hours ago, and his manner with him was clipped and impatient. Neal could feel the barely contained animosity pouring off of him, and he kept looking for opportunities to slip away, but Koehler was near him constantly, and Neal knew if he tried to run, he’d only catch him. He thought he could be patient, bide his time until he saw an opening - the man had to sleep sometime - but it did little to ease the fear he felt.
“We’ll start again in the morning,” Koehler said, more to himself Neal thought, but he felt compelled to answer.
“I don’t know if it will make any difference,” Neal said quietly.
“What?”
“Please, I don’t remember these places, these people you’re talking about.”
Koehler put his hand on the back of Neal's neck - a gesture that earlier that day had been kind and fatherly, but now was imbued with menace - and hovered over him, his face inches from Neal's. “Then you’d better try harder,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I want to go home!” Neal blurted and Koehler’s hand on the back of his neck squeezed painfully.
“You’ll go home when I’m through with you.”
“You’re hurting me.”
“I’ll do a lot worse if you don’t come through for me.” He pushed the boy away from himself then, and Neal stumbled and fell, his knees hitting the hard wood floor. The pain brought tears to his eyes and he cried out.
“Look at you,” Koehler said then, standing over him now.
Neal sniffled.
“The great Neal Caffrey - reduced to this. Do you know you had one of the most brilliant minds I have ever encountered? And now look at you. Pathetic.”
“Please, I want to go home,” Neal whined.
“Home? To your father the FBI agent? Do you really trust the man who locked you away to begin with?”
Neal had a sudden flash of memory then - he’d never had one when he wasn’t sleeping before - of himself standing with his hands in cuffs, his dad standing nearby, smiling with self-satisfaction. ”No,” he moaned, closing his eyes.
Keller went on, “Did it ever occur to you that the reason he kept you around was to make sure you wouldn’t turn out the same way? A criminal? A thief? A liar?”
“No, he loves me, my dad loves me,” Neal moaned, but he was no longer sure of that.
“No, he just didn’t want to have to do it all over again! It must have been so tiring last time, and he’s not getting any younger.”
Neal curled in on himself and sobbed. It wasn’t true, it wasn’t!
“Stop crying.”
But Neal couldn’t. He sniffled and tried, but the tears wouldn’t stop. Koehler grabbed him by the hair and shook him. “Stop crying!” he yelled.
“Ow!” Neal screamed, and tried to twist away, but Koehler was too strong.
“Get up,” he ordered, pulling. Neal got to his feet. “Over there!” Koehler pushed Neal towards the bedroom at the far end of the apartment. False walls had been built up around it, offering privacy from the rest of the loft, which was open plan, with exposed brick walls and ductwork along the ceiling. “Get on the bed.”
Neal climbed onto the bed and Koehler pulled a set of handcuffs from somewhere. “Better find a comfortable spot, because you’ll be in that position all night,” he said. Neal froze, so Koehler took his left hand and cuffed it to the head of the bed. “Snug as a bug,” Koehler muttered and stalked out of the room. Neal started crying again.
XxXxXxXxXxX
“Anything else? OK. Yeah,” Moz took some quick notes and then hung up his mobile - Rodney had come through. “Jesus,” he muttered, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes.
“What is it?” Peter asked, tense. They were sitting in a booth at an all-night diner. Peter had called El to tell her he was working an angle with Moz. According to Diana, the Amber Alert had yielded nothing, and there had been no ransom demand. Not that Peter expected it - with Keller, there would be no ransom.
“Looks like Keller was looking into Kool Eddie’s money train job,” he said.
“What? I thought that was an urban legend.”
“It was not. No one knows what happened to the score after Eddie hid it. If I had to guess, Keller thinks Neal does.”
“But that was - how long ago? Twenty years?”
“More - Neal was just a kid, but Eddie had a soft spot for him, and everybody knew it. Neal used to go visit him in the joint.”
“Do you think he told Neal where the money was?”
Moz shook his head slowly. “Eddie may have liked Neal, but he was still a shrewd old SOB. He wouldn’t have coughed that information up to save his own mother. Besides, if Neal had known about it, I’d have known about it.”
“What do we do now?”
“We go to the scene of the crime, see if Keller’s been there.”
----
“Another dead end,” Peter said bleakly, and glanced at his watch - it was now close to 3:00 am, and Neal had been missing for almost 16 hours. “I don’t know what we’ll accomplish at this hour - this place is closed.”
They’d been to the warehouse where Eddie had worked, and the scene of the robbery, and now they stood outside a shuttered storefront in Crown Heights that used to house an after-hours club. According to Moz, Eddie ran some of his cons out of the back room, and it should have been the first place they looked.
“True, we can come back in the morning, but let’s see what we can find on our own,” Moz said, running a sneakered foot over the Bilco door set into the pavement next to the entrance.
Within minutes, they were in the basement of the building, climbing the stairs to the main floor of the store, which was now a sub shop. “What’s this?” Moz said, bending over and picking up a brochure near the back counter. It was a scrap of a printed brochure of some sort, folded into an origami crane.
Peter took it from him and caressed it in his hand like it was alive. “It’s him, isn’t it? Neal left this.”
“I’ve never been so certain of anything in my life,” Moz said.
Peter unfolded it and saw that it was a section of a menu from a pizza joint in Manhattan - their first clue. “Thank you, God, thank you,” Peter breathed and pulled out his phone. Diana answered on the first ring. “Di, we’ve got a lead. I need you to go to Randazzo’s, it’s a pizzeria on West 14th between 8th and 9th. Find the owner, wake him, I need to talk to him. Now.”
XxXxXxXxXxX
”Don’t. Pick. This.” Peter said to him before leaving the meeting room.
Neal's eyes followed him, but his head wouldn’t comply, so he sighed when Peter had gone, and looked down at the cuff that linked his wrist with the wheeled chair beside him. He shook his hand and the cuff rattled. “I could slip you off,” he said, addressing the cuffs. “That wouldn't be picking. That'd be slipping. But... Looooooove…. many splendored thiiiinnnnng!”
Neal woke with a start, the dream-memory a vivid thing in his mind. And not just the action in the dream, but his feelings. He’d been stuck in a strange place - an office - and he had felt so funny. He was lying on a bed, tied down, but suddenly his father arrived to rescue him, and he was so happy and relieved to see him. Neal thought his dad was happy to see him too. His dad helped him get away.
What was that place? When had it happened? Neal wasn’t sure, it was all a blur, but one thing he was certain of - the love he felt for his father was there even then, and he could feel it coming from Peter as well. Surely an FBI agent and the man he threw in jail ought not to have those kinds of feelings for each other. “You’re the only one I trust,” Neal had said to him, and Peter had patted him fondly on the head.
He jerked, and his left wrist blossomed in agony where it was cuffed to the bed. Koehler had made the cuff too tight, and he must have shifted in his sleep, as now his hand awoke in painful pins and needles.
Don’t. Pick. This.
Suddenly, Neal was staring at his deliverance from this situation, and he would have kicked himself if he could manage it for not thinking of it sooner. Sitting up, he pulled his feet closer to himself and reached down with his right hand to the cuff of the jeans he wore. He fingered around the newly-sewn area on the left leg, picking at the threads there, silently thanking his paranoid Uncle Mozzie for giving him the tiny lock picks, and that he’d decided to test his rudimentary sewing skills out on putting some of them into his clothes. It took a few minutes, but he was able to remove the pick, then switched his attention to the cuff on his wrist.
After several minutes of trying with the tiny sliver of metal, Neal had no luck. “Come on, Burke,” he muttered to himself. “You can do this.” He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, then started over with renewed energy. “Now you’ve got five minutes,” he said, remembering his uncle’s lesson.
Four and a half minutes later, he felt the telltale click within as the lock turned over, and he was suddenly free. He rubbed at his wrist and got carefully off the bed. Moving over to the open bedroom door, he looked out into the main room of the loft. The sun had begun to rise, and from its weak light, Neal could see that Koehler was lying on the couch watching TV. He could see his bare feet hanging off the end, but the couch was facing away from where Neal was, so he couldn’t tell if Koehler was asleep or not.
Neal crept along the wall, keeping his steps light and as close to the wall as possible, to avoid making the floor creak as he moved. The going was slow, but he had always been capable of great patience, and he eventually moved far enough along to see that Koehler was indeed asleep. After a few more minutes, he was at the door, and within seconds, had it unlocked and open. With a backward glance, he snuck out onto the landing and headed for the stairs.
The loft was on the fourth floor of what used to be a pencil factory, but had long ago been converted into pricey apartments. Neal crept down the stairs as quietly as he could, and he didn’t think he made a sound, but he soon heard a yell from above as Koehler awoke to find the door to the apartment open and Neal gone. Neal took the remaining stairs at a run, hitting the third floor landing as Koehler’s feet hit the stairs above his head.
The stairs for this section of the building were situated at opposite ends of each floor, with balconies overlooking the lobby. Designed to be a showcase of the manufacturing equipment when the place was originally built - allowing visitors to walk the shop floors as they moved around the building - it meant that Neal had to run the length of the building in order to get to the next set of stairs. He ran as fast as he could, but he felt like Koehler was gaining on him. He twisted his body around to see where the man was as he hit the second floor, tripped and went flying. He landed sprawled on the floor, the wind knocked out of him.
“You little shit!” Koehler muttered as he came up behind him. He hauled Neal to his feet by his collar and shook him. “You’re as slippery as ever, I see.” He was about to drag Neal back up the stairs when a footfall behind them made the floorboards creak, and the cocking of an automatic weapon made them both stop.
“Freeze, Keller,” said a familiar voice, and Keller turned, his arm around Neal's collarbone, holding him in front of himself as a shield.
“Dad!” Neal shouted, tried to get away from Keller, but the man held him fast.
Keller was laughing. “Agent Peter Burke, it’s been too long,” he said. “How are you? And the lovely Elizabeth?”
“Let him go, Keller, and I won’t kill you,” Peter said from between gritted teeth.
“Wait, you two know each other?” Neal said, incredulous, but Keller’s arm around his neck tightened and he didn’t dare speak again.
“Keller, do you ever tire of tormenting me and my family?”
“Oh, family is it?” Keller’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “You mean you didn’t just keep Neal around for sentimental reasons?”
Peter ignored him. “What could you possibly want with him? He’s a child.”
“Oh, but he’s a very special child, isn’t he? One with a very interesting life history. Did you think I wouldn’t find him, Burke?”
“I thought you’d never see the light of day again, honestly - wasn’t that the point of a life sentence?”
“When you’re as resourceful as me, you tend to find people willing to help. The parole board was very… accepting of my rehabilitation.”
“You mean you bribed them.”
“Potato, potahto. But now here I am. With your boy’s life in my hands, again. How’s that make you feel, Burke?”
Peter stayed silent.
“You didn’t answer my question before - did you think no one would put two and two together? Neal Caffrey disappears, is reported presumed dead, and you magically adopt a child who’s his spitting image? It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it all out.”
“Those court records were sealed.”
“Resourceful, remember? I have to tell you, I didn’t think it was possible until I saw the kid. Imagine my surprise when I went to look up my old friend Neal and found that he now appears to be about 11 or 12. What a shock. What happened, exactly?”
“Th-they couldn’t say,” Peter stammered.
“But someone had to look after him,” Keller said.
“Yes.”
“And that someone was you?” Keller’s hand moved up and clutched at Neal's throat. Neal struggled, choking.
“Keller!” Peter took a step forward, gun pointed right at Keller’s head.
“He’s a lot smaller than he used to be,” Keller remarked as he applied more pressure to Neal's throat. “I bet I could break his neck pretty easily.”
Neal's struggling slowed as he began to lose consciousness. “Daddy,” he whimpered, but he could barely form the word. He sagged in Keller’s arms.
“Please, stop!” Peter said, his arm wavering. Finally, he lowered it, pointing the gun at the floor.
Keller’s grip on Neal's throat eased. “Put it on the floor,” he ordered and Peter did. “Kick it over.” Again Peter complied. Keller leaned over, Neal still in his grasp, and picked up the gun, then pointed it at Peter.
“Wish I could stick around and chat some more, but we should be going.”
“Let him go, Keller.”
“He’s worth a bit more to me still, Burke. So sorry. And so sorry you won’t be able to stick around.” Keller raised the gun and aimed it at him.
“Dad?” Neal said.
“It’s OK, son.” Tears flooded Peter’s eyes as he looked at him. “Be extraordinary for me, OK?”
“I will.”
Keller fired once and Peter went down. “Dad! No, no, no!” Neal cried, struggling as Keller attempted to drag him away. Keller held him tight, but Neal's need to get to his father was stronger and he stomped hard on the man’s bare foot with the heel of his sneaker. Keller howled in pain and Neal twisted away. He ran to his father, who lay on the floor, clutching at the bullet wound. “Dad!”
“Run, Neal. Run!” Peter gasped, and Neal straightened up. Glancing back at Keller, who was recovering from Neal's assault, he headed for the last set of stairs. Grasping the banister, he pulled himself around it, and ran headlong down them as Keller got a shot off at his head; plaster flew everywhere. He ran as fast as he could, hit the first floor lobby with both feet, and then ran for the front doors.
Neal pushed through the doors into the early morning sunlight to find that a group of FBI agents had surrounded the place.
“Neal!” called a familiar voice.
“Aunt Diana!” Neal yelled and ran straight for her.
She shoved him behind her protectively and raised her weapon as Keller burst out of the building. For just a moment, it seemed like he might have thought he’d make a break for it; he half-raised the gun towards the assembled agents.
“Just give me one good reason to put a bullet in you, Keller, just one!” Diana said, but the man thought better of it and flung the gun away from himself. Agents advanced on him, cuffed him, and dragged him away.
Diana turned to Neal and pulled him to her in a fierce hug. “Are you OK?”
He nodded against her body, then squirmed away from her. “My dad, he’s hurt!” he said urgently, and pulled away. He was about to run back inside when the doors opened again and Peter staggered out, left arm dangling uselessly at his side.
“Dad!” Neal shouted and ran to him.
“Neal,” he said, wincing as Neal threw his arms around him and his head hit him right in the solar plexus. He held Neal close with his right arm, bent his head down and buried his nose in his hair. “Thank God you’re OK.”
“I’m sorry, Dad!”
“It’s OK.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
“Shh, we’ll talk about it later. Right now, we need to call Mom.”
----
Later that afternoon, once Peter’s shoulder had been stitched up and he was resting comfortably in a hospital bed, El and Moz went off in search of something not cooked in the hospital for an early dinner for them all. Neal emerged from the hospital room’s tiny bathroom, headed straight for the bed and climbed in. He fit himself under Peter’s good arm and curled up against him, his arm flung across his belly and his head on his chest.
“You know, you’ll be getting too big for this soon,” Peter said, a smile on his face as he pulled Neal closer.
“I know.” He snuggled against him.
They lay that way for several minutes before Neal spoke. “What happened to me all those years ago?” he asked.
Peter took a deep breath. “They said they didn’t know. It was a rare thing - not the first time it’d happened, but they couldn’t explain it. One day you were yourself, and suddenly you weren’t. You were a little boy.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We were going to. Some day. We didn’t expect that day to come quite so soon, though. When it happened, when you were de-aged as they called it, your memories of who you were began to fade, and the doctors didn’t think you’d get them back. If we’d known this would happen, son, you would have known who you were all along.”
Neal was silent another few minutes, and when he spoke again, his voice was shaking. “Did you adopt me so I wouldn’t go bad again?”
“What?”
“Did you adopt me so you wouldn’t have to catch me again? And put me in jail?”
Peter flinched and looked down at Neal. “Who told you that?”
“Mr. Koehler did.”
“He would. Listen, Neal, nothing that man said to you was the truth. He is evil and he hates our family, and he would do anything to hurt us, OK?”
Neal nodded. “Then why did you adopt me?”
“Because we loved you,” Peter said simply, and Neal sat up to look at him, a doubtful expression on his face. Peter took another deep breath and went on. “I’ll bet one thing Keller didn’t tell you about your history was that you and I were partners at the FBI, and we solved cases together.”
“We were?”
“Yes, and we were a great team. But we were more than that, Neal, we were best friends. And when what happened to you… happened, it was barely a decision for your mom and me to adopt you. We did it because we already loved you, and you needed a home where you would have that, and be safe. You’re as much our son as if you’d been born to us. I hope you understand that.”
“I do.”
“Good. I apologize for lying to you, but we thought we were protecting you. We wanted to give you a happy life, the life you deserved, and we haven’t wavered from that, not once. You’re our life now, Neal, you made us a family. And who you were before - what you did, well, you did those things because in a way, it’s what your life added up to for you at that point, and you did what you had to do to survive. I don’t believe you’d turn out that way again, not in a million years. There’s no such thing as being born bad.”
Neal's eyes filled with tears as he listened to Peter speak. He saw and felt the love that had always been a part of their family in his father’s eyes, and he suddenly felt ashamed that he had doubted any of it.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to you and Mom first, I’m sorry I didn’t believe in you. I’ll never run away again.”
“Please don’t. I don’t think your mother could handle it again.” Peter held his arm out once more, inviting Neal to snuggle back down next to him. When he was settled, he lay his chin on top of Neal's head and began to speak. “Now, let me tell you about the smartest, best man I ever knew - Neal Caffrey.”
----
Thank you for your time.
Here is a companion story: The Pancake Song
And another one: The Proudest Fellow
Rating: PG-13
Characters/Pairings: Pre-teen!Neal, Peter, El, Moz
Spoilers: None
Content Notice: De-aging; violence against a child, but nothing you wouldn’t see on TV
Word Count: 15,200
Summary: Neal Burke is 11 and the most popular boy in school. His dad Peter is a badass FBI agent, his mom Elizabeth makes the best chocolate chip cookies, and his Uncle Mozzie shows him how to pick locks when his parents aren’t looking. His life is great. Except that lately, Neal has been having these strange dreams - dreams of another life and another Neal. What if they’re true?
Part 1 | Part 2
----
Peter got out of the Taurus, grabbed his briefcase and locked the car. He had come home early because the family had rescheduled the meeting with the guidance counselor and principal about Neal's skipping grades for that evening. They were due at the school in an hour, and still they didn’t have a decision for them. He spotted Elizabeth heading towards him from her own parking space up the block, and they converged on their front stoop at about the same time.
“Hi, hon, have a good day?” she asked, getting up on her tiptoes to kiss him hello.
“Long staff meeting,” Peter shrugged. “You?”
“I hope so - if I snag this account, we’ll have an in at the Mayor’s office.”
“Good luck then.” Peter unlocked the door for them both and let his wife precede him into the house while he grabbed the mail.
“Neal, we’re home, honey!” El called out as soon as she got inside. She hung up her coat, then headed up the stairs to drop off her things in her office while Peter stood in the kitchen sorting through the pile of mail. He was just about to open the cable bill when Elizabeth’s panicked, “Peter!” from upstairs made his blood run cold.
“What? What is it?” he said, entering their bedroom. El turned around, and Peter saw behind her the mess Neal had left when the boy had rifled through the wall safe. “Oh no,” he breathed, turned on his heel and went to the bedroom down the hall. There were papers strewn on the bed, but no sign of their son. Peter sorted through them all - the envelope had held Neal's files from the adoption and his reclassification hearing, and some of the documents were missing.
“Neal!” Peter could hear Elizabeth searching for him on the third floor, and he went out to the hallway.
“Is he up there?” he asked, knowing already what the answer was. El’s face was as white as a sheet as she stumbled down the stairs, and he could see her trembling. He handed her the papers from Neal's bed, and she rifled through them quickly, saw for herself what was missing.
He gathered her into his arms as she moaned, “Oh my God, Peter, he knows, he knows!”
Peter had to agree with her conclusion - there was no question in his mind that Neal's dream about Avery could not have been his first, and had been enough to make him investigate further. It also explained Neal's being uncharacteristically quiet and withdrawn over the last few days. Somehow, he’d figured out that he was the victim of a freak accident eight years ago that left him a child again at the age of 30.
But the papers in the safe wouldn't have told Neal the whole story, so Peter went into his son’s room and fired up his PC. On it, he sorted through pages of browser logs that showed he’d already researched the name “Neal Caffrey,” and Peter clicked through on a few. Conman. Art forger. Convicted felon. Thief. To Neal, his old identity was the sum of these news items, none of which told the true story. The story of the Neal Caffrey Peter knew: loyal friend, trusted partner, courageous, intelligent, maddening, lovable. And the Neal he’d become in recent years: beloved son, cherished and adored.
“Oh my God, what must he be thinking?” El said, sitting on her son’s bed with a stricken expression on her face.
“Never mind that, where the hell is he?” Peter said. He stood and pulled his cell phone from his pocket, cycled through the numbers on it and called the school. El got her own phone out and called Neal's friend Teddy’s house, then some of his other friends. Within ten minutes one thing was clear - Neal had cut classes that day, and none of his friends seemed to have seen him.
----
When Peter arrived at the school, the principal Mrs. Wong was waiting for him in her office with Mr. Bryant the guidance counselor. Elizabeth had remained at home in case Neal showed up, or if any of his friends had any information. Within minutes, some of Neal's teachers that were still in the building after classes had also gathered , and they were discussing when they had last seen the boy.
“I thought I saw him after third period this morning,” Bryant was saying. “He was talking with Mr. Koehler in his classroom.”
“Mr. Koehler? Who’s that?” Peter asked.
“Substitute math teacher,” Mrs. Wong informed him. “Mr. Fricke had an accident and had to take a few weeks to recuperate.”
“Neal didn’t mention a new teacher.”
“Come to think of it, I’ve seen Neal and Mr. Koehler together a few times after school,” added Bryant. “I think he was teaching Neal to play chess.”
“Neal is an expert player, he wouldn’t need instruction,” Peter said, pacing the floor in front of Mrs. Wong’s desk.
“I saw them at the tables in the park next to the school, playing. I just assumed he was teaching Neal.”
“But they were friendly, would you say that?” Peter said, pressing him.
Bryant gave it some thought. “I would say so, yes. They certainly seemed to get along well.”
“Where is this Mr. Koehler? Is he in the school?”
“He called out for the afternoon, come to think of it,” said Mrs. Wong.
Peter looked at her sharply and she flinched. “The strange man who’s been spending time with my son has disappeared at the same time,” he said slowly. “Who is this Koehler?”
“Now just a minute, our substitutes are subjected to detailed background checks.” Mrs. Wong got out the file for the substitute, but found nothing inside but his application. “I don’t understand,” she said. “There should be a background check in here, a copy of his photo ID, but there’s nothing here. Nothing.”
The knot in Peter’s stomach began to twist itself painfully and he closed his eyes, trying to think. “Does the school have surveillance set up that encompasses any part of that park?” he asked.
Mrs. Wong gave it some thought, then called down to the security office, requesting the tapes be sent up.
“No, wait a minute,” Peter said before she could hang up. “Have them also pull the tapes for every exit from the building today, every exterior shot you can pull. If they left together, it’ll be in there.”
“Certainly, Mr. Burke. We can set you up in our media room.”
“No, I’ll take them with me to the FBI - we’ll have better resources there. Please ask them to hurry.”
----
Peter stood behind the chair of Agent DeVries from the Cyber Division as the man scanned the footage from the school’s surveillance cameras for signs of Neal. The door of the video suite opened and closed and Diana entered, bearing coffee and sandwiches. “Any luck?”
DeVries accepted the coffee gratefully, but shook his head. “It must be the best covered school in the district, but no sign of the boy yet.”
Diana took a seat at an adjacent station. “Let me help, then - it’ll make it go faster.” Peter just stood at the back of the room staring at nothing, a muscle working in his jaw the only sign of life in him. Di picked up a disk labeled “Playground 3” and slid it into the machine in front of her. Fifteen minutes later, she sat forward and slowed the progression of the video. “Hang on a second. Is that Neal?”
Peter stepped forward and leaned over her shoulder as she magnified the image. “Yes.” On the video, Neal wandered slowly out of the school building, heading for a bank of tire swings in the middle of the playground. He sank onto one of the swings heavily, his shoulders bowed and his head down, pulled a piece of paper out of his backpack and began to stare at it. He looked so dejected, it made Peter ache to reach out and comfort him.
Neal sat swaying and twisting on the swing for several minutes before another person entered the frame, an adult male. He kept his back to the camera when he took up the swing next to Neal's and the two seemed to be talking as if they knew each other.
“The mysterious Mr. Koehler. Turn around so I can see your face, you son of a bitch,” Peter breathed.
Neal seemed agitated on the footage suddenly, and a few minutes later, Koehler stood, held a hand out to the boy. Neal slid out of the swing and took a step toward him. Koehler rested his hand on the back of Neal's neck and squeezed, and the two of them turned to leave the playground. When they did, Koehler finally faced the camera, his features presented full-on for one, fleeting second.
“Freeze that!” Peter ordered, but Diana already had. She magnified the image, sent it through a few filtesr in the graphics program she was running to clarify it. Finally, the man’s face resolved itself into something recognizable.
“Oh, my God, boss!” Diana sat up and reached for Peter, but he had already dashed from the room.
The man in the image was Matthew Keller.
----
Peter stood on the plaza in front of the Federal building, staring at his cell phone in his hand. Upstairs on the 21st floor, Diana was mustering resources for the search the FBI was about to launch for Neal and Keller. An Amber Alert had been sent out throughout the five boroughs, Connecticut and New Jersey, and all LEAs had been alerted. Diana had also sent agents to the Burke home to be with Elizabeth in the event of a ransom demand. Peter wanted more than anything to be with his wife, had in fact been ordered by his boss to go home, but there was no way he could do that.
His phone vibrated with an incoming text. The mockingbird flies at midnight, it read and he turned around.
“I don’t have time for this now, Moz,” he called out.
“Fine, fine,” Moz said as he approached Peter from behind. “Now tell me what was so urgent that you couldn’t tell me over the phone.
Peter turned and looked at his friend - in the years since Neal's adoption, the love the two men had for the boy had led to them forging a close friendship - and took a stumbling step toward him. For a moment, the iron grip he had been maintaining on his composure began to slip.
“Oh, my God, what happened?” Moz asked urgently, taking in Peter’s pale face, the tears brimming in his eyes.
“Matthew Keller’s back,” Peter moaned despairingly as he grabbed onto Mozzie’s shoulders for support. “He’s taken Neal, Moz! Keller’s got my son!”
XxXxXxXxXxX
“Pizza’s here,” Mr. Koehler said to Neal, closing the door of the loft he’d been squatting in for the last few weeks. Neal switched off the television show he wasn’t watching and walked over to join him at the kitchen table. Mr. Koehler laid the pizza box down, then crossed over to the fridge and grabbed a beer for himself and a soda for Neal.
They ate for a few minutes in silence, but finally Mr. Koehler spoke up. “So, did you say you could remember things about your life before?” He handed Neal a napkin.
“I suppose so. I thought they were dreams, but now I guess they’re really memories.”
“How much do you remember?”
Neal shrugged.
“Do you think if you saw something from your past, it would jog your memory? Like you might remember doing something if you were in the same place, I mean?”
“I don’t know. Maybe. Why?”
Mr. Koehler leaned forward, and Neal didn’t like the mean glint he saw in his eyes, though it passed quickly. “How would you like to go on a treasure hunt?”
“Treasure hunt?”
Mr. Koehler leaned back in his chair and squinted at Neal. “Twenty-two years ago, one of the biggest heists in the history of Manhattan occurred. The take was said to be over $9 million. Now, seeing as the target was the Irish mob, the crime was never exactly reported. The mastermind of the job - one Edward ‘Kool Eddie’ Jenkins - hid the money as planned until the heat died down enough for him and his partners to divvy it up. Kool Eddie subsequently got sent up on a charge of grand larceny. He died in prison a year later, and the money was never found.”
Neal regarded Mr. Koehler with large eyes. “Wow! Do you know where it is?”
“No, but Neal Caffrey does.”
“Really?”
“Caffrey - I mean, you - were something of a protégé of Eddie’s. You were young but smart, and rumor was Eddie told you where the money was hidden before he died.”
“I - I don’t remember any of that, Mr. Koehler.”
“But maybe you will, if we jog your memory properly.” He grinned at Neal.
Neal looked at him dubiously. He didn’t like the intensity in Mr. Koehler suddenly. Why was he so interested in this lost money? “How do you know all this, Mr. Koehler? You’re a teacher.”
Koehler shrugged and smiled, but the mirth he projected did not touch his eyes. “I have many talents. Eat your pizza - we’re going out after dinner.”
----
Neal followed Mr. Koehler through a line of old warehouses on the waterfront in Brooklyn. He walked slowly, wondering if he could just slip away from the man when he wasn’t looking. He didn’t like how Mr. Koehler was suddenly only interested in finding the stolen money, and he suspected that was the only reason he’d been talking to Neal to begin with. This made him sad, because the idea of someone who’d known him before made him momentarily relieved, like somehow he could start to put the puzzle of his life together. But Mr. Koehler had already lied to him once, and he wondered what would happen if they really did find the money - how useful would Neal be to him then?
If he could even remember anything about the money, he realized. Only a few memories of his old life had surfaced, and only while he slept, and he didn’t think he’d be able to just call them up no matter how they jogged his memory.
Mr. Koehler stopped walking and waited for Neal to catch up. He indicated the warehouse in front of them, and went over to the door, pulled out a set of picks and began to set to work on the locks. He had it open in seconds, much to Neal's amazement.
“You like that?” Mr. Koehler said, and Neal nodded - he never thought he’d be able to do it that fast, ever. “Practice, practice.” Koehler opened up the door and ushered Neal inside.
They walked to the back corner of the place, where a small, glass-fronted office was set up. Koehler opened its door and walked in, beckoned Neal to join him. “You recognize this place?” Neal didn’t react. “Well, maybe you don’t because it’s been a few years. I’m sure the place has changed a bit, but it used to be where Kool Eddie worked. Rumor has it this is where the plan was hatched, refined, practiced. You see, across the way there?” Koehler gestured to another warehouse across a broad expanse of pitted blacktop. “That’s where the Irish mob used to move their money from running numbers, drugs, all kinds of stuff. The day of the heist, they were moving a larger sum than they usually did, because they were laundering a few extra million for the cartels, and the Mexicans, well, they used to like to deal only in cash. You know what money laundering is?”
Neal shook his head; he didn’t know what any of this was.
“Doesn’t matter. What does matter was that Eddie, whose day job was managing this place,” he indicated the abandoned warehouse as a whole, “heard through the grapevine what was going on, and started assembling a crew to rob the money train. That’s what they called it, because they’d transport the cash in containers they’d move over abandoned rails. You were his wheel man.”
“Wheel man?”
“Driver. I don’t know why, because you could never drive for shit, but I think he liked you, and he wanted to cut you in.”
“OK…” Neal said.
“So, any of this jogging your memories? You getting a vibe here at all?”
“I’m not sure.”
“Take your time. Walk around. Take the place in. Absorb the ambience.”
Neal began to walk around the room slowly, because he thought that was what was expected of him, but it was no use - nothing about the place was remotely familiar. At last, he stopped and looked up at his teacher. “I’m sorry, Mr. Koehler. I don’t think I remember anything about this place.”
A brief expression of annoyance flickered across Koehler’s face, but he couldn’t cover it fast enough, and Neal noticed. His smile made him look like a bird of prey. “That’s OK. Why don’t we visit the scene of the crime instead.”
A finger of fear poked Neal in the belly. He didn’t think he wanted to go to the other warehouse, not where criminals used to hide their money. He thought it would be too dangerous.
“Relax, kid,” Koehler said. “The place hasn’t been used by the mob in years. And you’re with me - what could go wrong?”
XxXxXxXxXxX
“You brought a Fed here, Moz? Tell me why I shouldn’t shoot the both of you on the spot?”
Rodney - no last name, just Rodney - was the clearinghouse for information in New York. He was like a spider at the center of a great web of informants, lackeys and cops on the take, all of whom saw the value in trading information with him. Nothing happened in New York without his knowledge; no wise con pulled a job without first consulting with him. To Rodney, information was power, and he guarded it closely.
“I suppose I wouldn’t blame you if you did, but hear what we have to say before you decide. A child’s life may hang in the balance.”
Rodney’s stern expression softened. “Whose child?”
“His,” Moz said, indicating Peter with a thumb.
“And you’ve come to me? It seems to me the Feebs would have ample resources to help you.”
“Yes, the FBI is investigating, and they’re doing everything within the law to help, but I need more than that,” Peter said, his voice desperate. “I need whatever information you can offer, and I can pay. Please.”
Moz laid a hand over Peter’s to quiet him. “I’ll pay, Peter.” Of one thing Moz was certain: if Keller was in the city, Rodney knew about it. But that information would come at a high price, and there was no way he’d allow Peter to pay it. He couldn’t allow him to be beholden to a man like Rodney.
“Now wait just a minute there, Moz,” Rodney said. “It might not be a bad thing for me to have a Fed in my debt. This intrigues me.”
Moz bent over Rodney where he sat and made a dismissive gesture. “No. No way.”
“I’ll do it,” Peter said over him.
“What?”
“I’ll do it. I’ll do anything. Please, he’s taken my son, will you help me find him?”
Rodney blinked at the pleading tone in Peter’s voice. “Who has your boy?” he asked.
“Matthew Keller.”
Rodney sat forward on the couch he’d settled his considerable bulk into. “Really?” he said, barely able to hide the contempt in his voice. Like many of the old guard in the city, Rodney had had his share of run-ins with Keller back in the day. Some had been profitable, most had merely brought messes. Besides, Rodney had grandkids he loved very much. “I’ll do it.”
“Thank you,” Peter said, his relief making him barely able to stand.
“And I’ll even forego my usual fee because I hate Keller as much as the next man. But one day I may need a favor from you, Mr. Fed. Are you willing to do that?”
“Anything,” Peter answered immediately. “If it will bring my son back to me safely, I’ll do anything.”
“I’ll call you within the hour.”
XxXxXxXxXxX
It was getting late - almost midnight - and Neal was exhausted and missing his home and his bed and his family. Mr. Koehler had dragged him to three other locations to see if he could remember anything, and of course he could not, so they had returned to the loft apartment somewhere downtown. Neal wished he had thought to look at the street signs - he didn’t know the city all that well, but if he could somehow get away, he wanted to be able to call his dad to come and get him. Even if he was still mad at his parents for lying to him, he wanted to be back with them more than ever, because he was now scared of Mr. Koehler.
Mr. Koehler was angry with Neal, he could tell. The amiable smiles had faded hours ago, and his manner with him was clipped and impatient. Neal could feel the barely contained animosity pouring off of him, and he kept looking for opportunities to slip away, but Koehler was near him constantly, and Neal knew if he tried to run, he’d only catch him. He thought he could be patient, bide his time until he saw an opening - the man had to sleep sometime - but it did little to ease the fear he felt.
“We’ll start again in the morning,” Koehler said, more to himself Neal thought, but he felt compelled to answer.
“I don’t know if it will make any difference,” Neal said quietly.
“What?”
“Please, I don’t remember these places, these people you’re talking about.”
Koehler put his hand on the back of Neal's neck - a gesture that earlier that day had been kind and fatherly, but now was imbued with menace - and hovered over him, his face inches from Neal's. “Then you’d better try harder,” he said through gritted teeth.
“I want to go home!” Neal blurted and Koehler’s hand on the back of his neck squeezed painfully.
“You’ll go home when I’m through with you.”
“You’re hurting me.”
“I’ll do a lot worse if you don’t come through for me.” He pushed the boy away from himself then, and Neal stumbled and fell, his knees hitting the hard wood floor. The pain brought tears to his eyes and he cried out.
“Look at you,” Koehler said then, standing over him now.
Neal sniffled.
“The great Neal Caffrey - reduced to this. Do you know you had one of the most brilliant minds I have ever encountered? And now look at you. Pathetic.”
“Please, I want to go home,” Neal whined.
“Home? To your father the FBI agent? Do you really trust the man who locked you away to begin with?”
Neal had a sudden flash of memory then - he’d never had one when he wasn’t sleeping before - of himself standing with his hands in cuffs, his dad standing nearby, smiling with self-satisfaction. ”No,” he moaned, closing his eyes.
Keller went on, “Did it ever occur to you that the reason he kept you around was to make sure you wouldn’t turn out the same way? A criminal? A thief? A liar?”
“No, he loves me, my dad loves me,” Neal moaned, but he was no longer sure of that.
“No, he just didn’t want to have to do it all over again! It must have been so tiring last time, and he’s not getting any younger.”
Neal curled in on himself and sobbed. It wasn’t true, it wasn’t!
“Stop crying.”
But Neal couldn’t. He sniffled and tried, but the tears wouldn’t stop. Koehler grabbed him by the hair and shook him. “Stop crying!” he yelled.
“Ow!” Neal screamed, and tried to twist away, but Koehler was too strong.
“Get up,” he ordered, pulling. Neal got to his feet. “Over there!” Koehler pushed Neal towards the bedroom at the far end of the apartment. False walls had been built up around it, offering privacy from the rest of the loft, which was open plan, with exposed brick walls and ductwork along the ceiling. “Get on the bed.”
Neal climbed onto the bed and Koehler pulled a set of handcuffs from somewhere. “Better find a comfortable spot, because you’ll be in that position all night,” he said. Neal froze, so Koehler took his left hand and cuffed it to the head of the bed. “Snug as a bug,” Koehler muttered and stalked out of the room. Neal started crying again.
XxXxXxXxXxX
“Anything else? OK. Yeah,” Moz took some quick notes and then hung up his mobile - Rodney had come through. “Jesus,” he muttered, removing his glasses and rubbing his eyes.
“What is it?” Peter asked, tense. They were sitting in a booth at an all-night diner. Peter had called El to tell her he was working an angle with Moz. According to Diana, the Amber Alert had yielded nothing, and there had been no ransom demand. Not that Peter expected it - with Keller, there would be no ransom.
“Looks like Keller was looking into Kool Eddie’s money train job,” he said.
“What? I thought that was an urban legend.”
“It was not. No one knows what happened to the score after Eddie hid it. If I had to guess, Keller thinks Neal does.”
“But that was - how long ago? Twenty years?”
“More - Neal was just a kid, but Eddie had a soft spot for him, and everybody knew it. Neal used to go visit him in the joint.”
“Do you think he told Neal where the money was?”
Moz shook his head slowly. “Eddie may have liked Neal, but he was still a shrewd old SOB. He wouldn’t have coughed that information up to save his own mother. Besides, if Neal had known about it, I’d have known about it.”
“What do we do now?”
“We go to the scene of the crime, see if Keller’s been there.”
----
“Another dead end,” Peter said bleakly, and glanced at his watch - it was now close to 3:00 am, and Neal had been missing for almost 16 hours. “I don’t know what we’ll accomplish at this hour - this place is closed.”
They’d been to the warehouse where Eddie had worked, and the scene of the robbery, and now they stood outside a shuttered storefront in Crown Heights that used to house an after-hours club. According to Moz, Eddie ran some of his cons out of the back room, and it should have been the first place they looked.
“True, we can come back in the morning, but let’s see what we can find on our own,” Moz said, running a sneakered foot over the Bilco door set into the pavement next to the entrance.
Within minutes, they were in the basement of the building, climbing the stairs to the main floor of the store, which was now a sub shop. “What’s this?” Moz said, bending over and picking up a brochure near the back counter. It was a scrap of a printed brochure of some sort, folded into an origami crane.
Peter took it from him and caressed it in his hand like it was alive. “It’s him, isn’t it? Neal left this.”
“I’ve never been so certain of anything in my life,” Moz said.
Peter unfolded it and saw that it was a section of a menu from a pizza joint in Manhattan - their first clue. “Thank you, God, thank you,” Peter breathed and pulled out his phone. Diana answered on the first ring. “Di, we’ve got a lead. I need you to go to Randazzo’s, it’s a pizzeria on West 14th between 8th and 9th. Find the owner, wake him, I need to talk to him. Now.”
XxXxXxXxXxX
”Don’t. Pick. This.” Peter said to him before leaving the meeting room.
Neal's eyes followed him, but his head wouldn’t comply, so he sighed when Peter had gone, and looked down at the cuff that linked his wrist with the wheeled chair beside him. He shook his hand and the cuff rattled. “I could slip you off,” he said, addressing the cuffs. “That wouldn't be picking. That'd be slipping. But... Looooooove…. many splendored thiiiinnnnng!”
Neal woke with a start, the dream-memory a vivid thing in his mind. And not just the action in the dream, but his feelings. He’d been stuck in a strange place - an office - and he had felt so funny. He was lying on a bed, tied down, but suddenly his father arrived to rescue him, and he was so happy and relieved to see him. Neal thought his dad was happy to see him too. His dad helped him get away.
What was that place? When had it happened? Neal wasn’t sure, it was all a blur, but one thing he was certain of - the love he felt for his father was there even then, and he could feel it coming from Peter as well. Surely an FBI agent and the man he threw in jail ought not to have those kinds of feelings for each other. “You’re the only one I trust,” Neal had said to him, and Peter had patted him fondly on the head.
He jerked, and his left wrist blossomed in agony where it was cuffed to the bed. Koehler had made the cuff too tight, and he must have shifted in his sleep, as now his hand awoke in painful pins and needles.
Don’t. Pick. This.
Suddenly, Neal was staring at his deliverance from this situation, and he would have kicked himself if he could manage it for not thinking of it sooner. Sitting up, he pulled his feet closer to himself and reached down with his right hand to the cuff of the jeans he wore. He fingered around the newly-sewn area on the left leg, picking at the threads there, silently thanking his paranoid Uncle Mozzie for giving him the tiny lock picks, and that he’d decided to test his rudimentary sewing skills out on putting some of them into his clothes. It took a few minutes, but he was able to remove the pick, then switched his attention to the cuff on his wrist.
After several minutes of trying with the tiny sliver of metal, Neal had no luck. “Come on, Burke,” he muttered to himself. “You can do this.” He closed his eyes and took several deep breaths, then started over with renewed energy. “Now you’ve got five minutes,” he said, remembering his uncle’s lesson.
Four and a half minutes later, he felt the telltale click within as the lock turned over, and he was suddenly free. He rubbed at his wrist and got carefully off the bed. Moving over to the open bedroom door, he looked out into the main room of the loft. The sun had begun to rise, and from its weak light, Neal could see that Koehler was lying on the couch watching TV. He could see his bare feet hanging off the end, but the couch was facing away from where Neal was, so he couldn’t tell if Koehler was asleep or not.
Neal crept along the wall, keeping his steps light and as close to the wall as possible, to avoid making the floor creak as he moved. The going was slow, but he had always been capable of great patience, and he eventually moved far enough along to see that Koehler was indeed asleep. After a few more minutes, he was at the door, and within seconds, had it unlocked and open. With a backward glance, he snuck out onto the landing and headed for the stairs.
The loft was on the fourth floor of what used to be a pencil factory, but had long ago been converted into pricey apartments. Neal crept down the stairs as quietly as he could, and he didn’t think he made a sound, but he soon heard a yell from above as Koehler awoke to find the door to the apartment open and Neal gone. Neal took the remaining stairs at a run, hitting the third floor landing as Koehler’s feet hit the stairs above his head.
The stairs for this section of the building were situated at opposite ends of each floor, with balconies overlooking the lobby. Designed to be a showcase of the manufacturing equipment when the place was originally built - allowing visitors to walk the shop floors as they moved around the building - it meant that Neal had to run the length of the building in order to get to the next set of stairs. He ran as fast as he could, but he felt like Koehler was gaining on him. He twisted his body around to see where the man was as he hit the second floor, tripped and went flying. He landed sprawled on the floor, the wind knocked out of him.
“You little shit!” Koehler muttered as he came up behind him. He hauled Neal to his feet by his collar and shook him. “You’re as slippery as ever, I see.” He was about to drag Neal back up the stairs when a footfall behind them made the floorboards creak, and the cocking of an automatic weapon made them both stop.
“Freeze, Keller,” said a familiar voice, and Keller turned, his arm around Neal's collarbone, holding him in front of himself as a shield.
“Dad!” Neal shouted, tried to get away from Keller, but the man held him fast.
Keller was laughing. “Agent Peter Burke, it’s been too long,” he said. “How are you? And the lovely Elizabeth?”
“Let him go, Keller, and I won’t kill you,” Peter said from between gritted teeth.
“Wait, you two know each other?” Neal said, incredulous, but Keller’s arm around his neck tightened and he didn’t dare speak again.
“Keller, do you ever tire of tormenting me and my family?”
“Oh, family is it?” Keller’s voice dripped with sarcasm. “You mean you didn’t just keep Neal around for sentimental reasons?”
Peter ignored him. “What could you possibly want with him? He’s a child.”
“Oh, but he’s a very special child, isn’t he? One with a very interesting life history. Did you think I wouldn’t find him, Burke?”
“I thought you’d never see the light of day again, honestly - wasn’t that the point of a life sentence?”
“When you’re as resourceful as me, you tend to find people willing to help. The parole board was very… accepting of my rehabilitation.”
“You mean you bribed them.”
“Potato, potahto. But now here I am. With your boy’s life in my hands, again. How’s that make you feel, Burke?”
Peter stayed silent.
“You didn’t answer my question before - did you think no one would put two and two together? Neal Caffrey disappears, is reported presumed dead, and you magically adopt a child who’s his spitting image? It didn’t take a rocket scientist to figure it all out.”
“Those court records were sealed.”
“Resourceful, remember? I have to tell you, I didn’t think it was possible until I saw the kid. Imagine my surprise when I went to look up my old friend Neal and found that he now appears to be about 11 or 12. What a shock. What happened, exactly?”
“Th-they couldn’t say,” Peter stammered.
“But someone had to look after him,” Keller said.
“Yes.”
“And that someone was you?” Keller’s hand moved up and clutched at Neal's throat. Neal struggled, choking.
“Keller!” Peter took a step forward, gun pointed right at Keller’s head.
“He’s a lot smaller than he used to be,” Keller remarked as he applied more pressure to Neal's throat. “I bet I could break his neck pretty easily.”
Neal's struggling slowed as he began to lose consciousness. “Daddy,” he whimpered, but he could barely form the word. He sagged in Keller’s arms.
“Please, stop!” Peter said, his arm wavering. Finally, he lowered it, pointing the gun at the floor.
Keller’s grip on Neal's throat eased. “Put it on the floor,” he ordered and Peter did. “Kick it over.” Again Peter complied. Keller leaned over, Neal still in his grasp, and picked up the gun, then pointed it at Peter.
“Wish I could stick around and chat some more, but we should be going.”
“Let him go, Keller.”
“He’s worth a bit more to me still, Burke. So sorry. And so sorry you won’t be able to stick around.” Keller raised the gun and aimed it at him.
“Dad?” Neal said.
“It’s OK, son.” Tears flooded Peter’s eyes as he looked at him. “Be extraordinary for me, OK?”
“I will.”
Keller fired once and Peter went down. “Dad! No, no, no!” Neal cried, struggling as Keller attempted to drag him away. Keller held him tight, but Neal's need to get to his father was stronger and he stomped hard on the man’s bare foot with the heel of his sneaker. Keller howled in pain and Neal twisted away. He ran to his father, who lay on the floor, clutching at the bullet wound. “Dad!”
“Run, Neal. Run!” Peter gasped, and Neal straightened up. Glancing back at Keller, who was recovering from Neal's assault, he headed for the last set of stairs. Grasping the banister, he pulled himself around it, and ran headlong down them as Keller got a shot off at his head; plaster flew everywhere. He ran as fast as he could, hit the first floor lobby with both feet, and then ran for the front doors.
Neal pushed through the doors into the early morning sunlight to find that a group of FBI agents had surrounded the place.
“Neal!” called a familiar voice.
“Aunt Diana!” Neal yelled and ran straight for her.
She shoved him behind her protectively and raised her weapon as Keller burst out of the building. For just a moment, it seemed like he might have thought he’d make a break for it; he half-raised the gun towards the assembled agents.
“Just give me one good reason to put a bullet in you, Keller, just one!” Diana said, but the man thought better of it and flung the gun away from himself. Agents advanced on him, cuffed him, and dragged him away.
Diana turned to Neal and pulled him to her in a fierce hug. “Are you OK?”
He nodded against her body, then squirmed away from her. “My dad, he’s hurt!” he said urgently, and pulled away. He was about to run back inside when the doors opened again and Peter staggered out, left arm dangling uselessly at his side.
“Dad!” Neal shouted and ran to him.
“Neal,” he said, wincing as Neal threw his arms around him and his head hit him right in the solar plexus. He held Neal close with his right arm, bent his head down and buried his nose in his hair. “Thank God you’re OK.”
“I’m sorry, Dad!”
“It’s OK.”
“I’m sorry, I’m sorry!”
“Shh, we’ll talk about it later. Right now, we need to call Mom.”
----
Later that afternoon, once Peter’s shoulder had been stitched up and he was resting comfortably in a hospital bed, El and Moz went off in search of something not cooked in the hospital for an early dinner for them all. Neal emerged from the hospital room’s tiny bathroom, headed straight for the bed and climbed in. He fit himself under Peter’s good arm and curled up against him, his arm flung across his belly and his head on his chest.
“You know, you’ll be getting too big for this soon,” Peter said, a smile on his face as he pulled Neal closer.
“I know.” He snuggled against him.
They lay that way for several minutes before Neal spoke. “What happened to me all those years ago?” he asked.
Peter took a deep breath. “They said they didn’t know. It was a rare thing - not the first time it’d happened, but they couldn’t explain it. One day you were yourself, and suddenly you weren’t. You were a little boy.”
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
“We were going to. Some day. We didn’t expect that day to come quite so soon, though. When it happened, when you were de-aged as they called it, your memories of who you were began to fade, and the doctors didn’t think you’d get them back. If we’d known this would happen, son, you would have known who you were all along.”
Neal was silent another few minutes, and when he spoke again, his voice was shaking. “Did you adopt me so I wouldn’t go bad again?”
“What?”
“Did you adopt me so you wouldn’t have to catch me again? And put me in jail?”
Peter flinched and looked down at Neal. “Who told you that?”
“Mr. Koehler did.”
“He would. Listen, Neal, nothing that man said to you was the truth. He is evil and he hates our family, and he would do anything to hurt us, OK?”
Neal nodded. “Then why did you adopt me?”
“Because we loved you,” Peter said simply, and Neal sat up to look at him, a doubtful expression on his face. Peter took another deep breath and went on. “I’ll bet one thing Keller didn’t tell you about your history was that you and I were partners at the FBI, and we solved cases together.”
“We were?”
“Yes, and we were a great team. But we were more than that, Neal, we were best friends. And when what happened to you… happened, it was barely a decision for your mom and me to adopt you. We did it because we already loved you, and you needed a home where you would have that, and be safe. You’re as much our son as if you’d been born to us. I hope you understand that.”
“I do.”
“Good. I apologize for lying to you, but we thought we were protecting you. We wanted to give you a happy life, the life you deserved, and we haven’t wavered from that, not once. You’re our life now, Neal, you made us a family. And who you were before - what you did, well, you did those things because in a way, it’s what your life added up to for you at that point, and you did what you had to do to survive. I don’t believe you’d turn out that way again, not in a million years. There’s no such thing as being born bad.”
Neal's eyes filled with tears as he listened to Peter speak. He saw and felt the love that had always been a part of their family in his father’s eyes, and he suddenly felt ashamed that he had doubted any of it.
“I’m sorry, Dad,” he said. “I’m sorry I didn’t come to you and Mom first, I’m sorry I didn’t believe in you. I’ll never run away again.”
“Please don’t. I don’t think your mother could handle it again.” Peter held his arm out once more, inviting Neal to snuggle back down next to him. When he was settled, he lay his chin on top of Neal's head and began to speak. “Now, let me tell you about the smartest, best man I ever knew - Neal Caffrey.”
----
Thank you for your time.
Here is a companion story: The Pancake Song
And another one: The Proudest Fellow